Hi im an undergrad bio student at umcp and i have a question concerning the reliability of uranium-in-zircon earth age dating.

My biology teacher gave a lecture on the reliability of dating of uranium/lead in zircon and how zircon is closed enough to reasonably assume that lead exchange with the environment is negligible (i am not sure if exactly how the argument goes if my interpretation is incorrect please feel free to correct me XP) However when looking online i found this article which - though does not refer to the reliability of uranium dating - suggests that the zircon found in the earth are actually thousands of years old. It bases this assumption on the presence of helium in zircon which - they claim - should have escaped the zircon fragments had the zircon been a billion years old. This is the article http://www.answersingenesis.org/article ... n-research

alextemplet wrote:Answers in Genesis claims that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that dinosaurs and men coexisted. I would like to know how they explain the fact that we can see stars at night.

How does the earth being thousands of years old not allow stars to be shown at night?

they found an abundance of helium in zircon in depths up to 2900m but accredited it to the high temperatures underground (does that work? im not sure) it is an article about the implications of placing waste underground (or so i think thats what it means)

achung89 wrote:How does the earth being thousands of years old not allow stars to be shown at night?

Answers in Genesis believes in a very literal interpretation of the Biblical chronology which, they believe, states that the universe is approximately 6000 years old. Many stars and other celestial objects are farther than 6000 light-years away; if the universe were so young, we would not be able to see them because their light would not have had time to reach us yet. The fact that we can see quasars that are 11 billion light-years away indicates that the universe must be at least this old if not older; in fact, most cosmologists currently believe the universe to be about 13.7 billion years old.

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

The stars can be seen because the heavens were created before man... it is not clear what a "day" is to God... therefore, they could have been here any length of time before man was created. The Earth was also formed before the stars according to Genesis. I guess that would make the Earth older than the stars. None of this disproves that man has only been on Earth for 6 or so millennia. There is no recorded (written) history earlier than 4000 BC. If man finished 'evolving' 100,000 years ago like some scientists claim, where is there recorded history?? Please don't try to sell us that man only became intelligent in the last 6000 years. Also, the Greek scholars and the like, you cannot argue their intelligence---why did none of them discover/notice evolution??

Answers in Genesis believes that the days mentioned in Genesis are literal 24-hour days; thus, since the earth did not exist on the first day and man was created on the sixth, the earth would be about 6,000 years old. We all know this is complete fiction, because we can see the stars at night which, as you mention, are also about 6,000 years old if Genesis is to be interpreted that literally.

There is no history older than about 4,000 years ago because that is when humanity started writing; this has nothing to do with intelligence. In fact, for you to imply that it does is an extremely unjustified bias. Many cultures today (such as indigenous tribes in the Amazon) still have not developed writing; does that mean these people are stupid?

Since you mention the Greeks, turns out they were the ones who originally developed the theory of evolution. Pretty smart of them, wouldn't you say?

I would like to know how you refute the overwhelming evidence (radioisotopes, for example) demonstrating the age of humanity, if you do in fact claim that humans have only been around for six millenia.

Generally speaking, the more people talk about "being saved," the further away they actually are from true salvation.

"The early Greek philosophers," explains Dr. Hayward, "were probably the first thinkers to toy with the notion of evolution. Along with many other ideas from ancient Greece it reappeared in western Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries . . . But one great difficulty stood in the way. Nobody--not ever Lamarck, who made a brave attempt--could explain convincingly how evolution could have taken place. Each species seemed to be fixed. There seemed no way in which one species could give rise to another.

"Answers in Genesis believes that the days mentioned in Genesis are literal 24-hour days;"

There really is no way of knowing that... And what would time be to an infinite timeless being??

"There is no history older than about 4,000 years ago because that is when humanity started writing; this has nothing to do with intelligence. In fact, for you to imply that it does is an extremely unjustified bias. Many cultures today (such as indigenous tribes in the Amazon) still have not developed writing; does that mean these people are stupid?"

No, my experience with evolutionists is that they try to say man was not as intelligent in his beginnings as he is today.

"Many cultures today (such as indigenous tribes in the Amazon) still have not developed writing;"

I would have to check on that one... but even with that exception... the majority of people on the whole using writing would suggest that it is fairly easy to accomplish.

"There is no history older than about 4,000 years ago because that is when humanity started writing; this has nothing to do with intelligence."

Did visitors from space help build the great pyramids of Egypt and Central America?Is advanced technology from an alien civilization needed to explain how ancient man could move huge stones, build monumental structures, create intricate artwork and organize complex cultures? Some think so, because of their evolutionary belief that ancient man was ‘primitive’.If evolution were true, the further back into history we look, evidence should show a gradual decline in man’s intelligence, moving closer to the ape’s. Biblical creation would indicate otherwise. Man, created in God’s image, has always been intelligent. People make discoveries and invent things, and this knowledge is passed on and built upon. In this way, technology can increase within a society, but this is not because people become more intelligent.

There is a reason scientists and atheists cannot sum up their Theory of Evolution in plain English. It's a bunch of hogwash based on lies, half truths, and not very well thought out assumptions. Do some research... and good luck with that!